Gate To Calpurnia

• Sophie O'Connell, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2010

Oh please, oh please, let the bell ring! The alarm mustn’t have heard me because it still wasn’t ringing. Don’t you understand that this could mean my life? I glared at the prehistoric thing above the door. It was just hanging there, silently mocking my every move.
“Calpurnia is a land of truths and lies, but something to only be thought of as fantasy. No one knows where this mysterious land is, but those to have come across this land are thought to be the chosen ones, meant to live in this land for eternity.....” I tuned out the rest of my English teacher’s nasal voice as she droned on and on about some book written by an ex-student-now-famous-author. Who wants to hear about others accomplishments when you have to be out the door and in your car by 3:05? “....This was of course the land of the Duende, or as some of you may know as Pixie...” she said dramatically, could it get more ridiculous?
The hum of the bell rang in the distance. Thank you, thank you, and thank you! I rushed out of the class room Edward Cullen style knocking the books right out of some prissy girl’s hands. Score! I heard her curse my name several times before her voice was drowned out by the roar of the crowd moving from classes.
I bulldozed my way through some year 7’s and out to the student parking lot before I could be devoured by it and spotted my metallic blue Mini Cooper, parked just where I had left it. Yes! I had made it out before they had found me!
But I had celebrated too early; two shadows moved into sight and I straight away noticed the tank sized men I had come to known as the Bolsheviks. No, no, no, I was too late they were already waiting for me!
“Wow if it isn’t Jace-Jace-Brace-Face” the biggest one, Antony, chanted.
“Yeah! You should get some mace for that face!” the other, Greg, laughed.
“No Greg, just no. You should have left it at brace-face” Antony scolded.
Before I could turn and run while they fought something heavy landed on my shoulder and pushed me forward. I fell to the ground yowling in pain, that was going to bruise. I turned to see the source of the pain and found a brick as well as the other Bolshevik brother, Tom, standing over me.
I knew this time would be worse than before. I could see the iron bats they held behind their back, waiting for the perfect time to strike while I was down. This time I wouldn’t fight back. I’d take it as it comes and just hope I survived.
As I hunched over in a ball a bright light appeared from the forest opposite the car park. All three brothers looked up with shocked expressions as the shimmering light came closer and closer until you could make out an almost blue form in the centre.
A look of dread came over their faces and they turned and ran as if they were being chased by a bull. I glanced back to the light and noticed it was beginning to dim and the form was more visible. Holy Cow!
A pixie stood before me, the type you would see in cartoons, blue skin and all, but not short. She had unnaturally long legs and as she smiled I noticed that the end of her teeth were pointed, which seemed to accentuate her violet eyes. She was beautiful.
“You must be Jace, I’m Mynx.” Her voice was like the heavens, soft and warm, like nothing I had heard before. “You need to come with me, a battle has broken out and my people need your help.” She offered me an azure hand, translucent to the point you could see her veins. I accepted her offer and stood up to see she was half a human length taller than me. Wow.
“Did I get knocked out or something? This has to be a dream.” I muttered.
“Is that one of your human pick-up lines?” she smiled.
“Uh, no. I um, just.....” I sighed. “You’re blue”
She looked down at her hands and turned them over repeatedly. An expression of mock horror came over her face. “OH MY GOD! I’m blue how did I not notice that before?!” she went back to serious mode in an instant. “Yes I’m a pixie, no you are not dreaming and yes Calpurnia exists. Now, come with me” she grabbed a hold of my wrist and pulled me towards the forest she had come from.
“Wait” I tugged back on my hand, forcing her to a stop. Annoyed, she turned around. “If what you are saying is true, then that book...was real? So does that mean I’m the chosen one?”
The corner of her mouth quirked as if she was laughing at an inside joke. “Yes, you have been chosen.”
“Okay let’s do this” I grinned, already excited.
“Okay...” she said hesitantly and started walking again.
As we got closer the bright light became stronger to the point that it was hurting my eyes, just as I was about to close them the light went away and instead I was standing in an abandoned street.
“Toto we’re not in Kansas anymore...” I whispered as I took in the sight of the old church like buildings that had been bordered up and looked like they had been unoccupied for a while.
“Shhh” Mynx elbowed me in the ribs, but it was too late. The burly man she must have been watching turned our way and sauntered forward.
“What are you doing here? This area has been marked as off limi- IT’S YOU!” he stopped walking, then reached to his hip to pull out a gun he then aimed at us.
“WHAT THE HE-” I wasn’t able to finish my sentence as Mynx pulled me down an alley and into the darkness, dragging me at an unhuman speed.
A sudden stop had me catapulting into a recently discovered brick wall, a dead end. The clomping if heavy footsteps got louder. That’s when I noticed a makeshift balcony on the side of a half-built house. A parkour lesson I had taken a month ago came back to me and I took a couple steps back as I planned our escape.
When I heard the steps of the man come around the corner I bolted to the wall, planted my feet on the side and sprung, just to catch the edge of the balcony and pull myself up. Mynx stared up in amazement. Before the man spotted us I reached down and pulled her up with all of my strength.
Together now, we edged into the house, so as not to make a sound as the man reached the dead end and looked around for us expectantly. Then giving up and walking back.
“That was amazing,” Mynx breathed.
“Who was that guy?” I asked, ignoring the compliment.
She suddenly became tired. “He’s a soldier that works for my father.”
“He was about to shoot us!”
“Yes I know. My father wants me dead after I cost him his kingdom and had him outcast by his people. That’s why we need you.”
“Wait so you’re a queen?”
“Yes.”
“And your father is evil?”
“Yes.”
“So what does that make me?”
“King”
“WHAT?!”
“It was destined...” she muttered as some sort of excuse.
“Do I even have a choice?” I panted, having a panic attack.
“Yes... I mean you can go back to the human world or stay here....with me.” She looked at me with pleading eyes.
So this is how Alice felt, choosing between two worlds; two paths, a reality and a fantasy. Her heart lied with her family back in reality...while mine doesn’t have a family to lie with. So I guess in the long run I don’t really have a choice, there’s nothing left for me on planet reality. It was fate.
“I will help you.”
The End